A lot of people dread getting summoned to jury duty, but there are other people who don’t mind doing their civic duty.

In today’s story, one boss is upset when his employee is scheduled for jury duty.

He tells him to try to get out it, but his request completely backfires.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Owner refused to let me do jury duty

This was back in the 80’s, my first job, working as maintenance man at a local hotel.

I’d been working there part time since I was 16 and when I turned 18, I got a notice to attend jury duty.

I picked a week and I let my boss know.

The owner of the hotel found out (he was always a completely unreasonable jerk to all the employees) and sees me in the hallway and tells me that I need to do “whatever it takes” to get out of jury duty.

He needs me at the hotel that week for a large dog-show, ..clogged drains..etc.

If I’m not at work, I’m fired.

He told the judge the truth.

When I get to jury duty, day 1, I get selected to a week-long trial, and the judge asks jurors if there’s any reason we cannot serve on the jury.

They go around…

When they get to me, I’m nervous, never been in court before and too scared to lie.

I tell the judge that the owner of the business I work at will fire me if I’m not back today and said I needed to do everything I can to get out of jury duty or I’m fired, other than that I’m fine serving.

The judge looks mad.

The judge had a few questions.

The judge has me approach the bench, asks for the name of the owner, location, etc.

Then he hands the court officer a paper and says something to the officer. (the judge still looks mad)

I’m told to return to the jury box.

The judge was not at all lenient on the owner.

About an hour later (still selecting a jury), the officer returns with the owner, visibly shaken, in handcuffs and walked to the front of the judges bench.

The owner is standing in front of the judge.

The judge asks him questions which he apologetically tries to worm out of.

Then the judge (looking even more mad) instructs him that I will be here for jury duty, I will serve as long as I need to, and he should NOT do anything to retaliate against me.

The judge is filing charges and will be instructing the clerk to check with me regularly and if, for any reason, I am fired or face any disciplinary action at work – he will hold the owner in contempt, violation of a court order, etc (a bunch of legal stuff) and he will spend time behind bars thinking about how important jury duty is.

Then the judge makes him apologize to me, in court!

The owner didn’t retaliate.

I made it onto the jury and I served the week.

I reported back to work the following week.

I expected some blowback, but I never got fired, none of my shifts were changed and I got paid for my time in jury – I didn’t ask why I got paid.

The clerk did check back a few times and I was told to call the judges clerk direct phone number if anything happened.

It was awesome, I was pretty much bullet-proof and worked until I saved enough to go back to school.

Wow! That judge certainly scared the owner!

I’m glad he did so that he didn’t get fired.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s a similar story.

Here’s a story about how a juror got dismissed from jury duty.

Yes, jury duty is not optional.

Apparently lawyers don’t make good jurors.

Don’t cross a judge about jury duty!

You’d think that would go without saying, but here we are.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.